MINDI - app for mental health improvement
Neta Lotem, a fifth-year medical student at the Joyce and Irving Goldman Medical School, together with three students from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, won first place in the "Students Leading Innovation in the Public Sector" competition for developing an application that will improve healthcare – Mindi.
The application will enable mental health patients to track and identify changes or deterioration in their condition.
During her psychiatry rotation, Lotem was exposed to the experiences and feelings of patients who felt they had no involvement or control over their condition. Through in-depth research among patients and conversations with numerous caregivers and patients, Lotem began to consider ways to restore patients' sense of control and improve the interaction between them and their caregivers.
The idea took shape within the "Students Leading Innovation in the Public Sector" program, which lasts about a year. In this program, students from the university develop technological projects and applications based on the needs and challenges of various government ministries. The program is an initiative of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in collaboration with the National Digital Agency and Google.
Lotem: "Psychiatry relies heavily on the impressions of the caregiver and assessments made through conversation. In other words, there is little use of numerical and graphical indicators. We chose to address this issue through self-monitoring - developing a tool that allows patients to measure their condition and identify changes or deterioration in their state. Our dream is to turn Mindi into a real, accessible product for anyone dealing with mental health conditions across the spectrum."
